The composer of the Stabat Mater presented in this sound recording was musically educated in Malaga Cathedral at the end of the first third of the 19th century. The musical chapel of the citys first tempo had already suffered the onslaught of the yellow fever of 1803 and the French invasion during the Napoleonic invasion (1808\-1814), and had yet to receive the lethal blows of the successive disentailment measures of Mendizábal (1836), Espartero (1841) and Madoz (1854). However, what seemed to put an end to the stable ensemble to solemnise cathedral liturgies was paradoxically giving way to a paradigm shift. The everyday music of the cathedrals would be reduced to a minimum thanks to the resources established in the Concordat of 1851 signed between Pope Pius IX and Queen Elizabeth II. Hence, the drastic mutilation of the stable staffs in the cathedrals favoured what would quickly become a common and frequent practice, i.e. the ex profeso hiring of instrumental and vocal troops for certain solemnities and festivities, among which those related to Holy Week and its natural period of spiritual preparation, namely Lent, were particularly noteworthy.

In this second album in his French series, pianist Mark Bebbington is joined by baritone Roderick Williams and flautist Emer McDonough alongside the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jan Latham-Koening in a further program of music by Francis Poulenc. Featuring some of Poulenc’s most characteristic works, the program begins with his 1929 piano concerto Aubade originally written with a choreographed ballet element for a private fancy-dress party. The following year saw the composer set Surrealist poems by his friend Max Jacob in his work Le Bal Masqué, which Poulenc described as a ‘secular cantata’. Written in 1956 the Flute Sonata was described by the composer himself as being ‘simple but subtle’, while completing the album is the 1931 Sextet for piano and wind quintet.

October 29, 1923 - a date steeped in history. In the midst of a year of political and economic crisis, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde", from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. The composers assembled on this album not only profited from these developments, but also, in part, actively shaped them.

The composer Ernst Toch experienced the crisis year of 1923 in Mannheim, where his "Dance Suite" op. 30 was premiered on with great success. In this work, Toch was able to realize his interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and new forms of expression. His imaginative use of instruments is one of the most fascinating aspects of the suite.

The "Frauentanz" for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon op. 10 by Kurt Weill, written in the summer of 1923, reflects the interest in chamber music line-ups typical of the time. The decisive factor was not only a new ideal of sound and expression, but also the experience that in times of crisis, pieces with small ensembles had better chances of being performed.

Ernst Krenek had found essential impulses for his work in Berlin; when the crisis came to a head in the summer of 1923 he composed the "Three Mixed Choirs" a cappella op. 22 on poems by Matthias Claudius. Krenek designed these folksong-like works written by a lyricist from the epoch of Empfindsamkeit as parables.

For the festive concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of the cities of Buda and Pest to form the capital and residence city of Budapest in the autumn of 1923, Béla Bartók created his "Dance Suite" for orchestra - a "rather touchy issue", as the internationalist-minded composer explained in a private note.

REVIEWS:

Given [the events of 1923 in central Europe], you might imagine a CD of mostly German music entitled 1923: Wild Sound of the 1920s might sound a bit, well, wild. Far from it. If anything, it shows the opposite: surrounded by violence and the threat of chaos, the four composers represented here by works they composed in 1923 responded by raising their art to the nth degree of refinement and subtlety. Take Ernst Krenek, a composer who nowadays is remembered for a smash hit opera about a Black jazz musician, and for writing later in life some of the most fearsomely intellectualized, complex works in the entire history of music. He’s represented on this disc by three settings for choir of the 18th-century poet Matthias Claudius, of a ravishing otherworldly beauty caught to perfection in these performances.

Kurt Weill, known to the world for his bitingly satirical music dramas, appears as the composer of seven exquisitely allusive, bittersweet songs based on medieval German poems. Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is a brilliantly imagined set of six “character” pieces for just a handful of instruments, with titles like The Red Whirling Dance and Idyll. Standing somewhat to one side of all this German romantic/modernist intensity and compression is the Dance Suite by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, with its rumbustious evocations of Balkan and North African Music.

The occasional whiff of expressionist harshness or a gently satirical distortion of a waltz shows these composers were not completely cocooned in their composing studios. They were alert to the jarring, shifting currents outside. But what the CD reveals most strongly is how much these composers were focused on their own internal, imaginative world – and how much they cared about craftsmanship. Every bar in all four pieces is exquisitely made, and that quality is caught in the performances, which are all of enormous refinement.

-- The Telegraph

The year 1923 was a year of crisis in Germany; inflation was heating up and far right-wing parties were jockeying for power. In October, the first broadcast of public radio in Germany took place from the “Berliner Funkstunde” station on Potsdamer Platz. This provocative new disc from the Choir and Symphony of Bavarian Radio includes four works written a hundred years ago by a group of innovative composers who all made use of the new, disruptive technology of radio.

Kurt Weill’s Frauentanz is a suite of seven medieval songs, scored for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Weill helped to create the familiar soundtrack for Weimar Berlin, and this performance by Anna-Maria Palii and the fine instrumentalists of the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra provides the authentic feel of a society that was becoming increasingly decadent and hysterical in 1923 and beyond.

Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is another clever and imaginative piece with interesting orchestration: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass and percussion. The Berlin sound is also evident here, something a bit harsh and raw, in contrast with the softer-focused, more lyrical and pastoral modernism of Paris.

The Ernst Krenek work is a bit of a surprise: his 3 Choruses for a cappella choir . The ‘antique’ sound of these pieces remind me of two of my favorite works: Vaughan Williams’ G minor Mass, from 1921, and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Missa São Sebastião, from 1937. All three provide old wine in new bottles: ancient cadences with a modernist twist.

The final work on the disc is probably the best known: Bela Bartok’s Dance Suite for Orchestra. This is an orchestral showpiece, a kind of try-out for his Concerto for Orchestra written more than two decades later. Both pieces treat orchestral instruments in a solistic, virtuosic way. The source material might be folkloric, but this is definitely written in a modernist idiom.

Inflation, far right-wing agitation, disruptive technology: yes, we’re talking about 1923, not 2023. And the music on this disc is as fresh and forward-looking as some of the best music written today.

-- Music for Several Instruments (Dean Frey)

Grzegorz OLKIEWICZ was born in 1959 in Katowice, and died in 2021 in Wrocław. He graduated from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, where he studied in the flute class of the eminent Professor Stanisław Michalik. After graduation, he honed his skills at masterclasses given by Arnošt Bourek at the Leoš Janáček Academy of Music in Brno (Czechoslovakia) and Severino Gazzelloni at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (Italy). He was a three-time scholar of the Ministry of Culture and Art. This release features recordings of works by Benedykt Konowalksi, Feliks Rybicki, Tadeusz Szeligowski, Pavel Szymanski, and Jaroslaw Siwinski.

On LORD, HOW COME ME HERE?, composer Shawn Okpebholo turns the mirror of history on today’s society with a reimagined collection of spirituals by enslaved Africans and American folk hymns that draws upon music from the past to critique contemporary racial injustices in the United States and around the globe. An ensemble of mezzo-soprano, baritone, piano, cello, and flute poignantly bring Okpebholo’s music to life, from hopeful anthems celebrating community to laments between a mother and her Creator and hymns celebrating faith and hope over hate and fear.

REVIEWS:

As a collection of Negro spirituals and American folk hymns recast as contemporary art songs, Lord, How Come Me Here? is a natural sequel to Shawn E. Okpebholo's 2014 set of reimagined spirituals, Steal Away...Many of the spirituals and hymns are familiar yet are strikingly reborn in these arrangements.

Shifting gears, Bridges pairs with Altino for the heartbreaking lament “Lord, How Come Me Here?,” the cellist less supporting presence and more duet partner; as captivating as the singer's performance is, she's equaled by the passion of his playing. Countering the despair permeating the lament, the album's spiritual and folk hymn sides come together in the medley essayed with conviction by Liverman and Sánchez, “I've Never Felt Such Love / What Wondrous Love is This.” Meanwhile, Bridges captures the yearning of “Oh, Glory” with a transporting, gospel-tinged vocal, her impact all the greater for the restraint Sánchez shows in his accompaniment. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” stands out from the others for adding Thomason-Redus's flute to the Liverman-Sánchez pairing and for the jazzy swing treatment given the spiritual.

Throughout the recording, the material wears its art song garb comfortably, but emotional expression is no less pronounced in the updates as it is in the songs as originally presented. Okpebholo benefits immeasurably in having vocalists of the calibre of Bridges and Liverman with him, and the performances by the instrumentalists are as strong. None of that should overshadow, however, the fact that Lord, How Come Me Here? came into being through Okpebholo's efforts and crystallizes his thematic vision into song.

-- Textura

The Cracow Harp Quintet was founded in 2019; it consists of an unusual set of instruments: flute, harp, and a string trio. As the only such professional chamber ensemble in Poland, it promotes music that has been forgotten or has not been published yet. Thanks to the joint initiative, the members of the ensemble share many years of experience of concerts, festivals, and competitions in Poland and abroad. The album Hommage is a tribute to the output of the composers associated with the Quintette Instrumental de Paris – a formation whose 100th anniversary of the foundation falls this year. The album will feature compositions by artists who were closely related to the ensemble, such as Jean Absil, Jacques Pillois, Aleksan der Tansman, and Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur. The repertoire is distinguished by its diverse nature: French Impressionism, medieval monody motifs, fascination with East Asian culture as well as the 20th-century idiom of Polish music. The album will feature the world recording premiere of Jacques Pillois’s suite 5 Haïkaï and the Polish recording premiere of Sonatina da camera by Aleksander Tansman.

The turbulent life of Arthur Lourié (1891–1966) – student of Glazunov, friend of Blok, lover of Akhmatova, commissar of the Soviet regime, exile in Germany, France and the USA, ghost-writer for Koussevitzky – is reflected in the wide range of references in his music, from echoes of the ceremonies of ancient Greece to Neo-Baroque and Neo-Classical procedures perhaps inspired by his collaboration with Stravinsky in Paris. Some of the works in this first of two albums surveying his chamber and instrumental music have an almost ritual formality; in others a mischievous grin is not far from the surface.

REVIEWS:

The personnel is spearheaded by flautist Birgit Ramsl and they all play with commendable accomplishment and verve that serve Lourié well. There are also four premiere recordings. However you sum him up, stylistically, his remains a cultured, cultivated and agreeably cosmopolitan voice, drawing on Russian and French traditions to irradiate the ritual formality of his music.

-- MusicWeb International

Roberto Fabbriciani's journey continues into the depths of the work of Luis de Pablo (1930-2021). After the CD dedicated to the flute works of the great Spanish composer, the CD Pensieri is now released which sees Roberto Fabbriciani, a flautist who has collaborated with the major composers of our time, engaged with the Basque National Orchestra directed by José Ramon Encinar. At the opening is the piece that gives the album its title, Pensieri, Rhapsody for flute and orchestra composed in the years 2013-2014, in four movements. Followed by Flauta, tú voladora from 2020 for flute in C, Solo Kunst (2000-2017), Three fugues from “Die Kunst der Fuge” by J.S. Bach for clarinet solo in the flute version by Roberto Fabbriciani and, at the end of this intense listening journey, Sólo un paso (1974) for a flutist and an actor, with the elaboration of the flute part by Roberto Fabbriciani. Between unexpected sounds and very personal musical solutions, the album presents a program of great expressive richness, and offers itself as a heartfelt homage to a central figure in the history of Spanish music and, more generally, of the contemporary musical panorama.

The CD "Agua & Vinho Sentimentals: Moods for Flute and Guitar" offers a wide and varied anthology of pieces by different authors, from classical to contemporary, revisited by the personal sensitivity of Carolina Dello Iacono (flute) and Antonio Grande (guitar). In the intense instrumental dialogue, the publication becomes a singular musical story that explores different artistic languages, from the song by Egberto Gismonti (that gives the album’s title) to works by Ada Gentile, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Francis Poulenc, and others, between enveloping atmospheres and moments that open up unexpected sonic horizons. The protagonists of this particular listening journey, in a polyphony of ideas, voices, and creative instances, are Carolina Dello Iacono and Antonio Grande, musicians with great experience and extensive artistic activity.

Mélanie Bonis was one of the most interesting and prolific composers in France in the 20 years before the First World War. Obsessed with striking a balance between music and family, she came to notoriety late, becoming the first woman on the board of the Society of Music Composers. Nevertheless, The Great War put an end to any further publication, with Bonis devoting herself to sacred music (for organ or voice) and pedagogical works. She left a large amount of unpublished material to posterity, however, which demonstrates a knowledge of compositional and orchestrational technique unfairly neglected in her lifetime.

Bonis’s talents found expression in many genres, and the piano was undoubtedly her favorite instrument. Nevertheless, in her chamber music scores the flute is often the protagonist, and in the flute repertoire, Bonis’s chamber music output bridges the gap between Romanticism and Impressionism.